f the four colonies.
It is worthy of note that they did not take the trouble to ask the
permission of the home government in advance. They did as they pleased,
and then defended their action afterward. In England the act of
confederation was regarded with jealousy and distrust. But Edward
Winslow, who was sent over to London to defend the colonies, pithily
said: "If we in America should forbear to unite for offence and defence
against a common enemy till we have leave from England, our throats
might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through."
Whether such considerations would have had weight with Charles I. or not
was now of little consequence. His power of making mischief soon came
to an end, and from the liberal and sagacious policy of Cromwell the
Confederacy had not much to fear. Nevertheless the fall of Charles I.
brought up for the first time that question which a century later was
to acquire surpassing interest,--the question as to the supremacy of
Parliament over the colonies.

Down to this time the supreme control over colonial affairs had been in
the hands of the king and his privy council, and the Parliament had
not disputed it. In 1624 they had grumbled at James I.'s high-handed
suppression of the Virginia Company, but they had not gone so far as
to call in question the king's supreme authority over the colonies. In
1628, in a petition to Charles I. relating to the Bermudas, they had
fully admitted this royal authority. But the fall of Charles I. for the
moment changed all this. Among the royal powers devolved upon Parliament
was the prerogative of superintending the affairs of the colonies. Such,
at least, was the theory held in England, and it is not easy to see how
any other theory could logically have been held; but the Americans never
formally admitted it, and in practice they continued to behave toward
Parliament very much as they had behaved toward the crown, yielding
just as little obedience as possible. When the Earl of Warwick's
commissioners in 1644 seized upon a royalist vessel in Boston harbour,
the legislature of Massachusetts debated the question whether it was
compatible with the dignity of the colony to permit such an act of
sovereignty on the part of Parliament. It was decided to wink at the
proceeding, on account of the strong sympathy between Massachusetts and
the Parliament which was overthrowing the king. At the same time the
legislature sent over to London a skilfully